Chennai, June 26 (IANS) Yuvraj Singh is back in the Indian Test squad for the away series against Sri Lanka next month, barely three weeks after national selectors dropped him from the One-day side for the Asia Cup cricket tournament for lack of form and fitness.
To accommodate Yuvraj, the axe fell on Subramaniam Badrinath, who played the two Tests against South Africa in February.

Badrinath,29, forced his way into the Test side with a string of big scores, including 22 hundreds, in first-class cricket and scored a fifty in his first Test innings at Nagpur where he was involved in a 136-run partnership for the fourth wicket with century-maker Virender Sehwag.

Yuvraj, who has been a regular in the Test squad since the retirement of Sourav Ganguly, scored his last Test century against Pakistan in Bangalore in 2007 when he struck 169.

Since then Yuvraj has played 13 Tests and scored 581 runs with five half centuries at an average of 32.27. He missed the home series against South Africa with an injury.

After his lacklustre performance in the World Twenty20 in West Indies, Yuvraj was dropped for the Asia cup as questions were raised over not only his form, but more importantly his fitness.

The selection commitee, chaired by Krishnamachari Srikkanth, which met here with skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, has thus thrown another lifeline at Yuvraj.

Also, returning to the squad is Rahul Dravid who missed the South Africa series after being injured in the series against Bangladesh.

Harbhajan Singh, Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra will be more than adequate in the spin department while Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma and Sreesanth will handle the pace.

Sudeep Tyagi and Abhimanyu Mithun, who figured in the squad for the first Test against South Africa, did not find favour thereafter.

Wriddhiman Saha, who made his debut against South Africa as a batsman when Venkata Sai Laxman and his standby Rohit Sharma were both injured in the Nagpur Test against South Africa, has been retained as the second wicket-keeper. Saha made way for Dinesh Karthik for the second Test in Kolkata.

On current batting form, though, Karthik should justifiably feel unlucky as he had two good knocks as a replacement for injured Sehwag and was the man of the match in the final of Asia Cup.

Suresh Raina is the only player not have played a Test in the squad.

India are to play three Tests against Sri Lankan July 18-22 (Galle), July 26-30 (Colombo, SSC ground) and Aug 3-7 (Colombo, PSS ground).

India lost the Test series to Sri Lanka 2-1 the last time they visited the island nation in 2008.

It will be the third Test series between the nations in as many years.

The squad:

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain, wicket-keeper), Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma, S. Sreesanth, Suresh Raina, Pragyan Ojha, Murali Vijay and Wriddhiman Saha (wicket-keeper).